Chinese chipmakers could be boosted in post-Moore’s Law

Chinese dragon could take Chipzilla 

Not everyone is mourning the slow death of Moore’s Law and Chinese chipmakers could use the period to catch up with their Western rivals.

According to Shang-yi Chiang, a former TSMC executive VP and co-chief operating officer, China’s semiconductor industry could have a chance of strengthening its position.

Chiang, who now serves as an independent non-executive director for Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) thinks every cloud has a silver lining and that can be applied to the current state of Moore’s Law.

Talking to Digitimes,Chiang said that Moore’s Law will reach its physical limits in a decade. The existing innovation will allow the industry to enter the 3nm generation, but more technical breakthroughs will be required to bring us down to sub-3nm processes.

This gives China a good chance of making significant progress in the development of its local chipmaking industry, Chiang indicated.

He said it was time for Chinese chipmakers to lay out their strategies for developing technologies in the post-Moore’s Law era, which may help them catch up with their bigger international peers, Chiang said.

Chiang suggested that developing homegrown CPUs was essential for the country as it provided national security, and went beyond economic considerations.

There are already homegrown CPUs developed in China, such as Loongson- and ShenWei-series computer processors, Chiang identified. Improving the chip performance is an issue, and expanding the chip sales substantially is another, Chiang said.

He admitted that developing its own chips was tricky but worth it. He wanted CPU developers, foundries, backend houses and system vendors to cooperate and develop jointly their own platform for servers and other computing systems.

Such a move will also drive the local industry development, and pave the way for China to expand its chipmaking influence in the global marketplace, Chiang said.